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It was Labor Day Weekend, 1972. There was a hint of fall
in the air, the leaves were just beginning to turn and every once in a
while you could catch a whiff of muscadines when you walked in the woods. Summer was almost over. Lynnae White and I were leaning over the bridge
that crosses the end of the lake at Camp Calvin. We were doing our favorite
thing to do at Camp Calvin; we were watching Stuart McMullen paddle a
canoe. Stuart was the preacher’s son, he sat on the first pew every Sunday
in all his sullen glory, slumped over and glaring at his father, wishing his
dad had chosen any other profession in the world. He was almost an Eagle
Scout, and as he guided the canoe around the glassy lake, he was the epitome
of grace. And I loved him deeply, with all the passion of a twelve-year-old
girl. Those of you with twelve-year-old girls know what I’m talking about.
That was the weekend that I finally realized that Stuart McMullen would
never belong to me. I spent the entire afternoon that Monday sprawled
across my lime-green shag carpet, weeping and listening to Donnie Osmond.
[Carolyn sings]
And they called it, puppy love,
just because we’re in our teens.
O, I
guess they’ll never know, how a young heart really feels,
and why I love him so.
I had had my first taste of rejection. Well, ever since Suzie Miller
stole Matt Matthews from me in first grade, I’d had it pretty easy.
But we all know about rejection, don’t we? We all know
what it feels like to be cut from the team, or to get a letter of regret
from the one college we really wanted to go to, or to be downsized out of a
job, or to be the one who didn’t get an invitation to the slumber party. Yes, we all know that sinking sick feeling that being rejected gives you in
the pit of your stomach, the way we can feel that nothing will ever be right
again.
I often wonder how the children at Thornwell get over
their feelings of being rejected by their parents. I worshiped with the Thornwell community last Sunday. Pastor Alice had us whisper to one another
“God loves you.” We did that several times during the service and the sound
of children’s voices whispering in my ear “God loves you,” was one of the
most beautiful things I have ever heard. And I felt the love of God in that
community, the love that can begin to heal those wounds. And I knew that
that’s what being a Christian is all about.
The writer of Luke’s gospel is very focused on the
issues of wealth and concern for the poor and outcast. The
scripture we’ve
just heard is telling us exactly how God wants us to treat each other. “The
next time you put on a dinner, don’t just invite your friends and family and
rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some
people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the
tracks. You will be, and you will experience a blessing. They
won’t be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned –
oh, how it will be returned! – at the resurrection of God’s people.”
Some scholars believe that the author intended his book
to be read and heard by those of higher status in Greco-Roman society and
that the banquet in our Scripture can be seen as a symbol of that society.
Luke was trying to spur those Jesus followers into taking action. We’ve
heard that message at Northminster Presbyterian Church. We take action. With God’s help we provide clothing and food for those who need it, we
provide safe havens for children to meet with their birth parents, we build
habitat houses, we built a church in Brazil, we offer angel food, we race
for the cure, we do so many wonderful things for so many people. But
sometimes we forget who is in control. Sometimes we get scared and we get
worried and we wonder about our future. Especially in times of transition,
it’s easy to let our minds go in circles trying to figure out exactly what’s
going to happen and how we’re gonna’ make it happen and how quickly it will
happen, and what will happen if it doesn’t happen. We just drive ourselves
crazy! In the midst of one of those crazy times, I was trying to write this
sermon, and I had nothing. I finally just stopped trying to think at God
and just listened. I prayed “God, what message do you want your people to
hear?” And it came to me like that billboard that says
“Just tell the kids
I love them."
God loves you. God’s love is not puppy love. It is an
all-consuming raging forest fire love. It is a love that will never reject
us, that will always embrace us, that will always forgive us. When we open
ourselves to that love, it is too much for one heart to contain.
It spills
over in a joyous celebration of love that pushes us outside of our comfort
zones and forces us to share that love with others. And when we look at
each other through God’s eyes of love, there are no misfits; there are no
outcasts, because we see others as beloved children of God. Now I want you
to turn to your neighbors and whisper into the ears of three or four people
“God loves you.”
Praise God in all things. God is in control.
God loves you! Amen. |
